Best wood/material for kitchen knife handles and why
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Dominick Maone
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I like G-10 a lot. Comes in tons of colors. I always use it on my stainless knives so the whole knife is basically water proof. Can mix and match handles, pins, liners, and thong tubes for colorful knives. Here is an LSU purple and gold knife.
I think I have only used wood once. It was purple heart, which does not need to be stabilized. It is the nakiri in the last pic- yellow, black, red, pink g10 and purple heart wood.
I use micarta too, but usually on non stainless knives. In the last pic are two 1075 knives with micarta. I think it looks better but is not as water proof as G-10.
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I do love a good ho though...
inferno
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) <*))))><
i like g10 for its durability and hardness. but i dislike it for being glass fiber. which you get lung cancer from. if you breathe it in.
imo if you gonna work with g10 make sure you do all the rough work outdoors or under some serious suction system.
yeah i know many people will say g10 is perfectly safe and all that. and it is. if you never ever breathe it in as powder. ever!
and if you do. you will probably not die. but instead you will get more and more sick in general and you will never be able to track it down.
and to be honest, simply dying may actually be preferable to this. i'm not kidding at all.
i mean sanding this turns it into micrometer/nanometer powder. that goes into your lungs. clogs them up. and since its not in any way/shape/or form degradable in your lungs it will stay there until you simply die.
imo if you gonna work with g10 make sure you do all the rough work outdoors or under some serious suction system.
yeah i know many people will say g10 is perfectly safe and all that. and it is. if you never ever breathe it in as powder. ever!
and if you do. you will probably not die. but instead you will get more and more sick in general and you will never be able to track it down.
and to be honest, simply dying may actually be preferable to this. i'm not kidding at all.
i mean sanding this turns it into micrometer/nanometer powder. that goes into your lungs. clogs them up. and since its not in any way/shape/or form degradable in your lungs it will stay there until you simply die.
I like g10, micarta and epoxy resin for handles too but it doesn’t seem to be all that popular here. I guess I get that it’s not a natural material and maybe doesn’t feel as good in the hand as wood. I do like that there are endless possibilities with these types of materials and I like layering all of them together along with different types of metals and wood as well.
Jaeger
Knifemaker from Germany
For me, personally, stabilized wood is the best material. It's beautiful in all variations and resistant against everything in our kitchen... Natural wood is good too but you have to prep it well from time to time. I don't like pure g10 handles on kitchen knives...
Cheers Fabian
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In which case G10 might be considered.
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As an end user, at home, I have no idea of machinabilty, availability or price. I like the wenge handles of vintage full tang Sabs.
Agree. Also, Dan Bidinger is a magician with finishing micarta. His handles index well in hand too, solid grip.
Desert Ironwood.
Pros: Its more or less a close pore wood and looks amazing sanded to 800 and just buffed. No need for any finish. Feels great in the hand.
Cons: Very dense so needs to be mated to right blade or balance can be an issue.
Pros: Its more or less a close pore wood and looks amazing sanded to 800 and just buffed. No need for any finish. Feels great in the hand.
Cons: Very dense so needs to be mated to right blade or balance can be an issue.
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I was just chatting to @Tekkz about a rather lovely Australian wood called Western Myall that he's about to get some pieces of, and thought I might revive this thread to see whether anybody wanted to add any more of their 'favourite handle woods'…
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Here are some things I've liked, though I don't think I've ever actually bought a piece of wood for a handle; I use stuff that I find and cut up, other people's offcuts, and pieces that've been given to me. Obviously I have nothing against people buying bits of fancy burl &c. I love burl visually and it’s very difficult to find, or work, if you don’t buy stabilized blanks. But for me another part of the interest and fun comes from finding and transforming some of the beautiful pieces and logs of scrap wood destined for the bin or the fireplace.
To that end it’s worth getting in with some local woodworking types, who'll often have offcuts of nice things that are too small or knotted or gnarly for them to use in larger projects, but which are perfect for knife handles. They'll probably give you them for free, and cut them to spec too if you ask nicely. They're woodworkers after all; cutting up wood is their ‘thing’, it’s what gets them up in the morning. Like lumberjacks, but daintier.
Which is exactly how I got these pieces of Western Myall. Innocuous looking wood to begin with, almost like kindling, but the end result was a bit special. There's something about the tightly twisted grain, chattoyance, tobacco-smoke colour, tone, density, and general feel of the wood that really does it for me.
Another friend of mine was a winemaker and I worked a lot with some 70 year old Syrah vines from a vineyard he'd had to pull up and replant a few years previously because of a fungal infection. Vitis Vinifera grape vine wood is a right faff to work with and invariably requires filling, but it's gorgeous to look at, and has a lovely tactile feel for knife handles. Newer growth is light weight and light coloured, like Ho wood, while the old growth is dark and dense. And because of the way vines grow, are trained and pruned, it’s all twisted up together in a single piece.
Firewood is another good source, as it tends to be dense hardwood which is slower burning, and properly cured because green wood is incredibly smoky if you try to burn it. In Australia people buy firewood by the half ton and get delivered logs of gorgeous Redgum, Pinkgum, or even better - Sheoak.
This is a Sheoak burl/growth thing I found in a friend's log pit, with the ferrule from some Redgum out of my own:
And a different firewood log of 'lacy' figured Sheoak.
As well as trees Australia also has about a trillion sheep. And a trillion sheep require a lot of shearing. These planks are Callitris, sometimes called Australian Cypress Pine, and were reclaimed floorboards from an old shearing shed. Fortunately they had been properly cleaned before I was given them, because Callitris smells absolutely lovely when working it. It's very high in terpenes and in fact barely needs oiling at all, it comes off a belt sander looking pretty much completely finished.
As you can see - finding gorgeous looking handle material in Aus is like shooting fish in a barrel, it's absolutely everywhere. But alas I've now moved back to the UK, so my next post on this thread will be looking at the subtler, gentler charms of some British species I've been using since then...
[TBC]
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Here are some things I've liked, though I don't think I've ever actually bought a piece of wood for a handle; I use stuff that I find and cut up, other people's offcuts, and pieces that've been given to me. Obviously I have nothing against people buying bits of fancy burl &c. I love burl visually and it’s very difficult to find, or work, if you don’t buy stabilized blanks. But for me another part of the interest and fun comes from finding and transforming some of the beautiful pieces and logs of scrap wood destined for the bin or the fireplace.
To that end it’s worth getting in with some local woodworking types, who'll often have offcuts of nice things that are too small or knotted or gnarly for them to use in larger projects, but which are perfect for knife handles. They'll probably give you them for free, and cut them to spec too if you ask nicely. They're woodworkers after all; cutting up wood is their ‘thing’, it’s what gets them up in the morning. Like lumberjacks, but daintier.
Which is exactly how I got these pieces of Western Myall. Innocuous looking wood to begin with, almost like kindling, but the end result was a bit special. There's something about the tightly twisted grain, chattoyance, tobacco-smoke colour, tone, density, and general feel of the wood that really does it for me.
Another friend of mine was a winemaker and I worked a lot with some 70 year old Syrah vines from a vineyard he'd had to pull up and replant a few years previously because of a fungal infection. Vitis Vinifera grape vine wood is a right faff to work with and invariably requires filling, but it's gorgeous to look at, and has a lovely tactile feel for knife handles. Newer growth is light weight and light coloured, like Ho wood, while the old growth is dark and dense. And because of the way vines grow, are trained and pruned, it’s all twisted up together in a single piece.
Firewood is another good source, as it tends to be dense hardwood which is slower burning, and properly cured because green wood is incredibly smoky if you try to burn it. In Australia people buy firewood by the half ton and get delivered logs of gorgeous Redgum, Pinkgum, or even better - Sheoak.
This is a Sheoak burl/growth thing I found in a friend's log pit, with the ferrule from some Redgum out of my own:
And a different firewood log of 'lacy' figured Sheoak.
As well as trees Australia also has about a trillion sheep. And a trillion sheep require a lot of shearing. These planks are Callitris, sometimes called Australian Cypress Pine, and were reclaimed floorboards from an old shearing shed. Fortunately they had been properly cleaned before I was given them, because Callitris smells absolutely lovely when working it. It's very high in terpenes and in fact barely needs oiling at all, it comes off a belt sander looking pretty much completely finished.
As you can see - finding gorgeous looking handle material in Aus is like shooting fish in a barrel, it's absolutely everywhere. But alas I've now moved back to the UK, so my next post on this thread will be looking at the subtler, gentler charms of some British species I've been using since then...
[TBC]
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Western Myall is a cool wood, about as dense as gidgee. I don’t think it will take well to stabilizing and doesn’t need it as it’s an oily wood. The oil is yellowish and doesn’t mix with sealers.
Here’s a western myall handle with some serious curl.
Here’s a western myall handle with some serious curl.
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Cool figure!
And interesting about the oiliness... my pieces above (which are the only ones I've ever had) weren't particularly oily, but they were very, very old. The guy who gave them to me had in turn been given the wood about 20 or 30 years ago by a geologist friend of his, who'd found a dead Western Myall in the outback of northern South Australia whilst working there. The guy estimated the tree had probably been dead for about 200 years, and was 500+ years old before that.
As you say - it's an extremely dense wood. It probably takes a fair old while sitting in the desert to completely cure some of the oils out of it!
Corradobrit1
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Anything with a natural texture is optimal. Burnt chestnut, Bog Oak etc. Second would be natural hardwood like ironwood, Ebony. I dislike stabilised woods with a passion, which feels like a lump of plastic in my hand.
My fav of all time D-shaped JNS burnt chestnut
My fav of all time D-shaped JNS burnt chestnut
Thanks for the example. That's beautiful.
+1 for D-shaped burnt chestnutAnything with a natural texture is optimal. Burnt chestnut, Bog Oak etc. Second would be natural hardwood like ironwood, Ebony. I dislike stabilised woods with a passion, which feels like a lump of plastic in my hand.
My fav of all time D-shaped JNS burnt chestnut
Anything that's got some grip to it and looks nice!
Another +1 for burnt Chestnut. And burnt Oak!
Wenge is nice also. Kind of reminds me of burnt Chestnut, without having to do the whole burning part.
Another +1 for burnt Chestnut. And burnt Oak!
Wenge is nice also. Kind of reminds me of burnt Chestnut, without having to do the whole burning part.
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Ho wood...change my mind 
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Well it's not that hard or dense, usually it's stabilized though.
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Three favorites, Tasmanian blackwood, curly rosewood, and gidgee. Gidgee probably the best. Why? 4th densest wood in the world and really stable+beautiful. Rosewood also very oily which makes for a good handle in contact with water a lot. And taz is just beautiful of course
Stabilized yes. Interesting though first when I look it up gidgee is listed as 3rd hardest and at 82.4 pounds per cubic foot while Koa can be variable, ranging from 30 to 80 pounds per cubic foot. So a Stabilized Koa at 80 pound per cubic foot would probably give a gidgee a good run for its money.
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I go off the wood database which usually goes off averages where koa is 1170 lb ft janka with an average dried weight 38 lbs per feet while gidgee is 4270 lb ft janka and 72 lbs per feet. So on average almost 4x as hard.
But yeah all woods are variable...including gidgee. Can get more dense than that. I also have stabilized gidgee as well although it doesn't take up much resin.
Pretty sure the density of most stabilized woods will come out reasonably similar. My stablized tasmanian blackwood which is basically identical to koa feels similar in density to gidgee as well.
Regardless moral of the story is stabilizing makes pretty much most woods good for handle making
So this is from wood database. Gidgee Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC): .93, 1.15
This particular piece of Stabilized Koa was about 1.15 so on par with Gidgee for SG.
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Well yeah of course stabilized can have a higher density, it's filled with resin lol
Corradobrit1
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That looks like a walnut board from 227wood. There is a good reason why he has 100% feedback from 660 reviews
To try to answer OPs question, I think it depends on a lot of things.
When it comes to professional environment and practicality, some sort of stabilized synthetic material like Micarta or G10.
Material that is durable, stable and easy to clean.
The best wood/wa handles, from a pure practicability standpoint, are probably fine grained stabilized hard woods that don't absorb fluids.
With that being said, IMO balance and optics also play an important a role and me personally, I would always choose the handle/wood, that fits the knife best, even if the material/wood itself is not the best.
When it comes to professional environment and practicality, some sort of stabilized synthetic material like Micarta or G10.
Material that is durable, stable and easy to clean.
The best wood/wa handles, from a pure practicability standpoint, are probably fine grained stabilized hard woods that don't absorb fluids.
With that being said, IMO balance and optics also play an important a role and me personally, I would always choose the handle/wood, that fits the knife best, even if the material/wood itself is not the best.
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He's the value GOAT for end grains for sure
